What better time to start working with the REACT projects than with a successful trip to Sheffield Doc/Fest (7-12 June). I’ve been brought into REACT to support the Future Documentary projects through their next exciting phase and to advise on their development for application and attendance at festivals and markets.

As you heard from Simon Moreton earlier this month five of the six Future Documentary projects were present in Sheffield attending a variety of different events. To support the delegation REACT hosted a drinks reception on Tuesday 10thJune and invited over 80 key decision makers to attend including Channel 4, Vimeo, Indiegogo, MIT, YLE and many more.

With more exciting news from the QUIPU team who continued a conversation started last month at Docs Barcelona and secured a further €10,000 from Ramillas towards their project.

Jess Linington had this to say about their experience at the Crossover Market - "The Crossover market provides the right setting to discuss interactive projects and gives a dedicated environment that clearly sets the right expectations to Decision Makers of the specific requirements and potential of this kind of projects., Sheffield’s dedicated space is certainly more productive in terms of meeting counterparts that understand the innovation and disruption of the traditional model that these kind of projects can produce."

The QUIPU team also had a number of positive meetings during the festival and we expect to see some more good news from them soon. Unfortunately, they were upset that they didn’t have time to watch any films!

They were also able to announce the exciting news that BBC Storyville (the flagship BBC Documentary Strand), Creative England and Ffilm Cymru Wales have come onboard to support the project. This support secures the future of the project with a TV Broadcast is 2015.

Congratulations to all the teams who’ve returned from Sheffield Doc/Fest.